censor

an official who examines books, plays, news reports, motion pictures, radio and television programs, letters, cablegrams, etc., for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds.

2.

any person who supervises the manners or morality of others.

3.

an adverse critic; faultfinder.

4.

(in the ancient Roman republic) either of two officials who kept the register or census of the citizens, awarded public contracts, and supervised manners and morals.

5.

(in early Freudian dream theory) the force that represses ideas, impulses, and feelings, and prevents them from entering consciousness in their original, undisguised forms.

There were two of them at a time in classical times, usually patricians, and they also had charge of public finances and public works. Transferred sense of "officious judge of morals and conduct" in English is from 1590s. Roman censor also had a transferred sense of "a severe judge; a rigid moralist; a censurer." Of books, plays (later films, etc.), 1640s. By the early decades of the 19c. the meaning of the English word had shaded into "state agent charged with suppression of speech or published matter deemed politically subversive." Related: Censorial.